USSD-Based Shared Mobile Phone Personalization
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Solution Overview
Problem
In developing countries, many individuals cannot afford mobile phones, leading to shared usage where they lack personal phone numbers, contact databases, and voicemail access, and face challenges with call records and billing.
Innovation Solution
A method and system utilizing USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) to enable shared mobile phone usage, allowing subscribers to borrow a handset and access their personalized prepaid account, address book, and voicemail without needing their own handset or SIM card, by using a shared mobile phone server that temporarily disables the owner's account and provides a personalized USSD menu.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If mobile phones are made low cost for shared usage, then accessibility and economic impact improve, but individual subscribers lose personal phone numbers, contact databases, and voicemail access
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the mobile phone service into two independent components: the physical handset (shared resource) and the subscriber identity/account (personalized resource). By using SIM cards and USSD technology, each user maintains their own account identity while sharing the physical device, thus resolving the contradiction between shared accessibility and personalized service access.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) as an intermediary mechanism that enables communication between the shared handset and the network's HLR (Home Location Register). This intermediary allows the system to identify and personalize service delivery to each user based on their unique subscriber identity, even when using a shared device, thereby maintaining personalized service access while enabling shared usage.
2Ease of manufacture
If shared phone usage is implemented without personal accounts, then device cost decreases, but call records and contact management become problematic
Solution Approach 1:
The system creates a virtual copy of each user's contact database and call record information on the network side (in the HLR and MSC databases) rather than requiring physical storage on the shared handset. This allows users to access their personalized information through the network infrastructure, eliminating the need for physical copies on the shared device while maintaining data integrity and accessibility.
3Adaptability or versatility
If USSD is used for shared phone access, then service personalization improves, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent leverages the existing universal USSD protocol already embedded in all GSM handsets to achieve personalized service access. By making the shared phone system compatible with the existing USSD standard, the solution avoids introducing new complex communication protocols while still enabling personalized service delivery through the network's existing infrastructure, thus minimizing system complexity.
Data Source
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AI summary
Enabling personalised shared mobile phone usage within a wireless telecommunications network, including an illustrative application of the invention as it relates to mobile subscribers who cannot afford a mobile phone handset in the emerging markets developing countries or poor regions. For instance, a prepaid wireless subscriber can be provisioned on a wireless network without the need for a mobile phone handset or SIM but with a personal phone number. The subscriber may access his account and invoke the system by keying in an Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) short code followed by his account number on a borrowed handset to access a personalised menu sent from the system over the network. Key features of the disclosure are the very low cost of entry and the ability for a subscriber to access the system from any GSM MAP2+ handsets without the need for any modification or downloading of applications.